There’s Tar on My Heel

Sorry for leaving you hanging the past couple of days…it’s been a bit of a whirlwind but a fun one at that!

I hopped the bus from Atlanta to Charlotte on Friday – snacked on a little hard-boiled egg sandwich to hold me over…

And a handful of granola.

From there Chad and I made our way over to Chapel Hill!  Chad grew up in Chapel Hill and also attended the University of North Carolina so we decided to sign up for the Tar Heel 10-Miler this weekend figuring it would be a great chance for me to get to see where he grew up as well as getting to run a race together!

We arrived in town right in time for dinner and after driving down Franklin St. to see a little of the town…

We ended up settling on Pepper’s Pizza for our meal:

I started with an ice water and a house salad

Then ordered a chicken pesto stromboli

The dough on this thing was INCREDIBLE.  I didn’t come close to finishing it, but every bite I was able to shove down was absolutely delicious.

From there we checked into our hotel:

And headed straight to bed seeing as we had a 6:15am wakeup call the next morning!

{Sidenote:  I have to say that I was super impressed with Aloft Chapel Hill!  Clean rooms, impeccable service and a lot of great amenities.  We got a great rate for this weekend as well.  HIGHLY recommend it if you’re ever in the area and need a place to stay!}

Bright and early we headed out for the Tar Heel 10-Miler!

The place was packed as nearly 5000 people got ready to run!

And one hour, 21 minutes later we were drenched in sweat, adorned with metals and finished!

It was a fun race!  Lots of killer hills but they were nicely off-set by a lot of downhills…overall not bad at all for a 10-miler.

From there we showered, dressed and headed out for some brunch at Foster’s Market:

This place is like a foodie heaven.  I could’ve spent HOURS in here just wandering around!

As soon as we walked in I immediately ordered a double shot iced soy latte..

Tasted like the best thing I’d ever had.

They also offered freshly-squeezed orange juice which is what Chad went with.

The wait for the food was definitely a good chunk of time.  I’m not sure if it was because the place was crawling with runners, families and UNC students or if that’s just typical…but just fair warning if you’re in the area and looking to go That said, it was completely worth the wait!

I went with the Farmer’s Plate:

Two eggs any style, baked ham (had the choice of that or sausage), roasted potatoes (choice of grits) and an herb cheddar biscuit.

I didn’t get around to the biscuit by the time I ate through the rest of the plate, but Chad tried it and really liked it.

For his meal he went with the Cinnamon Vanilla French Toast:

Which he said was delicious.

From there we spent the rest of the afternoon galavanting around the UNC campus!

We took a walking reprieve around 2pm to head out to Chad’s old neighborhood, see his house and eat some LUNCH!

We settled on A Southern Season (another place that’s a foodie’s dream)

We split a turkey sandwich on dark multigrain with lettuce and spicy mustard –

A Boylan Lemon Seltzer for hydration:

SO good.

+ a side of daily news:

After a little downtime in the hotel room, we picked ourselves up and headed out for dinner + dessert!

Spanky’s for dinner (I wanted a burger) –

We pretended to look at the menu for 3.4 seconds..

Then ordered our burgers!

The burgers were delicious.  The french fries were AMAZING!

I went with a cheeseburger topped with pepperjack cheese, pickles, onions, lettuce, ketchup and guacamole – I ate about half and would’ve eaten more had there been room!

Definitely recommend this place if you’re ever in the area and want a good burger.

I also got a side salad which I did mainly to get some veggies in…but ended up really liking it.

It just so happened that Sweet Frog was RIGHT next door…so we just had to go in for some dessert 😉

Peanut butter, chocolate and vanilla swirl with every kind of candy topping possible!  If that’s not a happy ending, I’m not sure what is!

Post-ice cream eating we hung out in the quad for a little bit…

Then called it a night!

We’re headed out tomorrow but not before we squeeze in one more delicious meal!!

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